In a low-rise industrial neighborhood of Kharkiv, eastern Ukraine, around half an hour’s drive from the city center, there are rows of what appear to be white shipping containers set back from the main road and surrounded by a blue metal fence.

The rows of containers, which are covered in snow this time of year, are actually a hamlet of makeshift housing units for those who have already fled the conflict in Ukraine, back in 2014, when Russian-backed separatists forcibly seized much of the Donbas region.

The people of the “module city” live in incredibly confined quarters – think of a construction-site movable cabin with low ceilings and strip lights, separated into a living room, kitchen, and bathroom area, and populated by families of two or three or more.

“Yes, the accommodations are sad,” said Liudmyla Bobova, a tenant who shares a private flat with her husband and elderly mother, a relative luxury compared to their previous unit, where they slept on bunk beds and shared a kitchen and bathroom.

Bobova and her family, on the other hand, are grateful to be here, she said. “There is occupation,” she explained, alluding to the separatist zone from which they had escaped. “Life is grey there, and you can’t breathe freely. I can breathe freely here.”

She just shrugged when asked about her new living situation. “That was one life, and this is another,” she explained.

Bobova formerly resided in Molodohvardiisk, a small mining town on the Russian border with minimal political engagement and people who were just obliviously pro-Russian, according to her.

When the war broke out, her family and thousands of others fled the area on foot and by train as shells rained “like booming thunder,” she recalled.

They wound themselves in the modular city, where they’ve been ever since. The modules, which were funded for by the German government, had a three-and-a-half-year maximum shelf life for human occupation, but after seven years, roughly 175 individuals remain.

“There is nothing more consistent than the temporary,” remarked Artur Statsenko, the local council’s unit manager. “The government has done a terrible job of managing these folks. We have received nothing from the state budget for the past eight years. We have a Reintegration Ministry, but they have not given us a dime.”

The Ministry for Reintegration, which was established in 2016 and is responsible for caring for internally displaced individuals (IDPs) from Donbas, did not react to inquiries from the BBC.

The prospect of a twofold displacement for the IDPs arises from Russia’s imminent new threat to attack Ukraine. Their makeshift dwellings, which are only 25 kilometers from the Russian border, would be directly in Russia’s path. However, an invasion did not appear to be high on the list of concerns for the citizens of the modular city.

“We don’t talk about the escalation or the possibility of having to evacuate again,” Iryna Belinska, a 64-year-old grandmother of nine who shares a flat with her ailing husband,” said.

“We need a true roof over our heads, not a plastic little house,” she explained, pointing to her buckled floor and shattered ceiling.

“We’ve got a lot more pressing issues on our minds than war.”

Kharkiv, a historically Russian-speaking city 300 miles from Kyiv but only 30 miles from the Russian border, has seen its cultural identity transform as a result of the conflict in eastern Ukraine. Belinska spoke in Russian, but Bobova is now only able to communicate in Ukrainian. When she was forced to evacuate her house in 2014, she abandoned Russian for the night as a form of personal protest against the conflict.

The rebels who took control of Donbas also tried to take control of Kharkiv, momentarily raising their flag on the regional government building in the city center. In pursuit of political support, ousted Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych traveled here, but was confronted with street protests and fled to Crimea, leaving Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second most populous city, uncontested.

“Kharkiv has always been pro-Ukrainian,” said Boris Redin, an affable lifelong “Kharkiver” who has run a pro-Ukraine demonstration tent in front of the city hall since 2014. “However, like any city, it has become more pro-Ukrainian since the war began,” he remarked. “We are not worried if the Russians attack us; they are our guests.”

If the Russians crossed the border nearby, Kharkiv would be an obvious destination, but Vladimir Putin’s army could confront stiff resistance from the local population. Many have joined volunteer battalions and trained to fight, and the city’s streets were once again packed with protestors two weeks ago, this time screaming “Kharkiv is Ukraine” and “stop Russian invasion.”

“People have joined the territorial defense, volunteers are still going to the warzone, and everything is working,” Svitlana Gorbunova-Ruban, Kharkiv’s deputy mayor, stated. “We will defend our city in any situation and by any means necessary.”

There’s a lot to defend in this city: 38 colleges, museums, a booming tech industry, and a thriving modern arts scene, to name a few. Oksana Zabuzhko, a well-known Ukrainian writer, recently completed a three-week residency here.

“When the war broke out, there was an explosion of art in Kharkiv,” said Natalia Ivanova, director of the city’s institute of modern art. “It was a form of non-acceptance, a form of resistance.”

• Tensions in Ukraine: The US defends evacuating the embassy, as Zelensky calls for calm
• Tensions in Ukraine: Joe Biden Says US citizens should leave Ukraine
• Russia launches military training with Belarus, escalating tensions in Ukraine

Svitlana Oleshko, a local theatre director, reported that displaced artists and opera singers from Donetsk and Luhansk were asked to join theatre organizations and opera shows in Kharkiv. She remarked, “They were welcomed in Kharkiv.” “This is a city of young people who are becoming increasingly pro-Ukrainian and less Russian. They see what life is like in Donetsk, Luhansk, and Crimea and don’t want to live like that.”

In a way that cities further west do not, the war is felt here. On their route to the front, troops pass through Kharkiv and return wounded to its hospitals. Families have been divided by a line that divides the city from the disputed zone, and the influx of individuals displaced from Donbas – estimated to be between 120,000 and 350,000 people – has exacerbated the differences.

When the displaced landed in Kharkiv, there were “undoubtedly examples of discrimination,” according to Alla Feshchenko, the leader of Station Kharkiv, a local non-governmental organization.

“For example, people refused to rent their apartments to them because they were scared they may turn out to be pro-Russian,” she explained.

“However, other Kharkivers treated the IDPs admirably; they recognized that we could have ended up in the same situation as Luhansk and Donetsk, but we were fortunate.”

In the early days of the war, cars with fabric stretched across the top or side displaying the word “children” would occasionally be seen driving about the city, according to Feshchenko, indicating that the car belonged to someone who had driven out of the disputed territory during the fighting.

“They didn’t remove the fabric because they couldn’t believe they weren’t in danger anymore,” she explained.

One thing was certain about the displaced people who arrived in Kharkiv, according to Feshchenko: the federal administration had “completely failed them.”

“The module city is the most horrible of all evils,” she declared. “People should never be left in such a situation. Fights, shattered windows, showdowns, and module vs module were all part of the scene. It places people at the bottom of the ladder.”

The city had been sitting on finalised plans for permanent housing on the site of the module city for four years, after an agreement to split the costs 30 percent – 70 percent with the government, but the Ministry for Reintegration had yet to pay any of its part, Gorbunova-Ruban, the deputy mayor, told the BBC.

The principal issue of the remaining citizens of the modular city is finding suitable housing. They aspire to be Kharkivers in their own right. They convene council meetings on occasion to discuss their worries, and the minister for reintegration is mentioned more than the threat of war.

Liudmyla Bobova claims she doesn’t miss Molodohvardiisk. Some of her distant relatives remain, but nothing they’ve told her makes her want to return. “My life was full before the war. But all I need now is my own home, and my life will be complete once again “She expressed herself in Ukrainian.

The post Tensions in Ukraine: An eastern city unites against Russia after eight years of war appeared first on Rush Hour Daily News | Breaking News, U.S & World News, Politics & Opinions - News around the Worlds.